


A Rainbow of Grief (Like a Healing Bruise)

by Veriatas



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Happy Ending, Symbolism, Tim Drake-centric, introspective fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27280720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veriatas/pseuds/Veriatas
Summary: Everyone always equates blue with sadness, when it comes to symbolism.But Tim's grief had never been blue.
Relationships: Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Kon-El | Conner Kent
Comments: 12
Kudos: 72





	A Rainbow of Grief (Like a Healing Bruise)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [Robinlikeitshot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinlikeitshot/pseuds/robinlikeitshot) for being my beta for this!

Everyone always equates blue with sadness, when it comes to symbolism. 

Misery like a blue haze over the vision, lingering in the air, painting everything with its monochrome wash of colour. Why were tears always blue in drawings? They weren't blue. They were translucent rivulets that streamed like rain over skin. But symbolism demanded that there should be rivulets of blue over every sadness, made grief out to be as deep and dark as the midnight of the ocean.

But Tim's grief had never been blue.

The first time he felt it, grief was red and green and gold, silence looming where laughter had once rung out through the night. Grief for a symbol, for a person, for a hero, for an idol. Grief for a red tunic and green gloves and a golden cape. Grief for a Robin.

The next time it had been purple. It was a more personal grief, this purple. It was an eggplant suit, torn and bloodied and bruised. It was sparkly violet nail polish sitting in his room and plum coloured writing on a post it note. Grief was seeing a purple scarf in a store window and thinking and forgetting and grieving all over again.

After that grief was black and red and god, it was so hard to breathe. This time, Tim painted himself in grief's colours, drowned himself in black and red and wallowed in them. At night his tunic was red, his cape black. Robin wasn't so bright anymore, too shrouded in loss. In the morning, grief could be found in a red and black superboy shirt, soft and too big and so, so cold. 

Then grief was just red, blood pooling on the floor, a second chance gone forever. His father was gone, and the grief was red, red, _red._

After that, his grief was black again. It was Batman's cape and his cowl, Bruce's hair and his turtleneck sweaters. It was Dick in a suit and shoes that he had never wanted to fill. It was dark, so dark, until he looked at a portrait and thought he might have found the light. 

But then grief was black and red and green and gold, a suit stolen for a child who had red blood on his hands. It was the sharp edges of a black cape that wasn't his. It was the green of a pair of combat boots. It was the golden symbol of an R. Funny, that Tim should be grieving Robin again. 

But never once had his grief been blue. 

Happiness was blue, though. It was the quiet pride in Bruce's stormy eyes. It was Nightwing's ridiculous finger stripes as they train-surfed. It was blue skies around him as he flew with Kon. It was the stain on Steph's lips after she ate blue raspberry ice cream. It was the glimmering navy of Cass's dress at a gala as she giggled and twirled with Tim on a dance floor. It was the delicate bluebells that decorated Alfred's porcelain teacup. It was ink left in the margins of the books Jason leant him. It was the blue strokes on Damian's canvas as he painted Titus in his astoundingly lavish dog bed. 

Usually, to be surrounded by blue was to be surrounded by misery. But Tim was surrounded by blue now, and he had never been happier.


End file.
